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| Book reviews: the history of El Al and marketing strategy secrets |
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Remember those Road Runner-Wile E. Coyote cartoons? Locked in a game of existential cat and mouse, Coyote (looking hunted and emaciated) valiantly tried to escape the nubile Road Runner, whose signature sound was “beep, beep.”
Like magic, the Road Runner would appear out of nowhere in a cloud of accumulated, speed-spinning dust and demolish Coyote.
Sure, you felt sorry for the dapper Coyote, destined for a flattened road-kill fate at the end of every episode.
But you couldn’t help applauding that Road Runner –– unflappable, unstoppable, triumphant, proud.
Roadrunner Marketing: Strategic Secrets You Wish You Knew, written by Melanie Goetz and Esty Atlas, is a useful marketing primer that promises to “beep the competition.”
Goetz and Atlas cram the book with practical advice designed to boost business, particularly in a sour economy:
- build awareness;
- generate publicity;
- attract customers;
- discover what works (and doesn’t work);
- create a marketing “buzz.”
Interviews with successful local entrepreneurs show how positive business strategies, when combined with equal parts personality and drive –– can deliver in all economic climates.
Goetz has been the president of Hughes & Stuart Marketing since 1980, serves as the company’s senior account executive and has 30 years of experience in the field.
Atlas, the public relations director at Hughes & Stuart, is a four-time Emmy Award-winning writer and creative producer who worked as a television news marketer for 16 years. She is the sister of Zahava Koll.
The goal of Roadrunner Marketing is twofold: to help existing small businesses stay on top of their marketing game, and demonstrate how new entrepreneurs can build independent businesses quickly and effectively.
This book is not intended for large companies that can afford an outside PR firm.
Roadrunner Marketing covers the bases: developing a proper press release, targeting media outlets, creating a dynamite Web site, attracting new customers while retaining loyal ones, participation in industry and community events.
The personal interviews, which are particularly instructive and insightful, feature realtor Edie Marka; Terry Vitale, publisher of Colorado Expression; Ken Rosenthal, founder of Panera Bread Co.; entrepreneur Jesse Aragon; Drs. Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn, founders of Baby Signs; Carol Burnette, owner of the upscale Denver women’s consignment shop “Ali’s Closet”; and others.
What they all seem to share is inspirational receptivity, a drive that won’t quit, and an incredibly positive attitude.
Like the Road Runner, they are unstoppable –– regardless of the roadblocks they encounter along the way.
For Goetz and Atlas, growing a business is not a guessing game. It is predictable –– and therefore within your control.
The authors also intertwine quotes, sometimes from unlikely sources, throughout the book.
For example:
“A customer is the most important visitor on our premises; he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption of our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do so.”
The head of Nike?
Try Mahatma Gandhi.
To every overwhelming question posed by today’s business owner, Goetz and Atlas offer a concrete answer –– and just keep going and going and going.
Whether you want to start a new business or learn how to keep an existing one thriving, Roadrunner Marketing is a good place to start.